230 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



274. 



ST GERMAIN-EX-LAYE : CHATEAU NEUF (1594). 



From an Old Print. 



double the length of each side, thus quadrupling the extent of the court. 

 Le Mercier, with admirable self-restraint, allowed himself to be guided 

 in almost every detail by the existing work. The western and southern 

 wings with the intervening angle pavilion were completed. He merely 

 reproduced them towards the north, interposing, however, the " Pavilion 

 de 1'Horloge" or "Sully" between the old and new work in the axis of 

 the enlarged palace, thus providing a new entrance from the west. 

 This was the one opportunity he allowed himself for expressing his 

 own ideas, but even here he followed the general lines of the old angle 

 pavilion, varying it by substituting a square dome for the hipped roof, 

 and by the different treatment of the fourth storey (Fig. 223). Since 

 the enrichment, required to bring the latter into harmony with its sur- 

 roundings could hardly be effected by an order, which would have stood 

 awkwardly over the attic order of the third storey, he solved the difficulty 

 by using caryatids. The composition, in which these female figures, 

 executed by Jacques Sarrazin (1588-1648) and his assistants, form so 

 striking a feature, is one worthy of its position, though open to criticism 

 in more than one point. The fussy triple pediment, perhaps suggested 

 by de 1'Orme's Tuileries, can hardly be defended, while the excessive 

 scale of the caryatids and the ponderous dome conspire to produce 

 a top-heavy effect.* 



ST GERMAIN. More characteristic of the times than those at the 



* See notes on pp. 141 and 167-9. M. Batiflfol contends that Le Mercier was merely 

 commissioned to carry out the extended scheme adopted by Henry II. in 1549, but ob- 

 tained permission to modify the central pavilion by making it wider, and by introducing 

 he caryatids and dome. The original design is shown on a medal struck in 1624. 



